


Petites Villes

by cruisedirector



Category: Smallville
Genre: Community: wednesday100, Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles set in Smallville and Metropolis written for wednesday100.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> I've posted these in alphabetical order because that's the order in which I had them saved; it's not the order in which they were written, nor the order in which they take place.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Show something ending.

It begins just past twilight, when violet still clings to the west as if it knows this to be its final chance. The first bursts on the horizon light up the evening like fireworks.

Metropolis burns like candles on a birthday cake. Smallville curves into the sky like a parachute.

"Was it worth it?" Clark asks quietly, watching from beyond. He can't say whether he's talking to himself or to Lex, who, of course, isn't there.

It's too late to wonder if he could have changed things. It's much too late to ask which of them is truly to blame.


	2. Anywhere But Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Anywhere but Smallville.

No red kryptonite this time, just leaving; and at any moment he might stop remembering. In the Louvre are thousands of faces, distractions on canvas. In Rome they're skulls, each with a lost story. Clark visits Jerusalem, site of a thousand conflicts bigger than his own. Then he assays Tibet, a slow circumambulation to cleanse his sins.

Lex's eyes follow him with perfect clarity at Teotihuachuan, Bodhgaya...pyramids, monasteries. Finding no peace, Clark tries Kilauea, the North Pole, the Sahara, for weeks on end as no man could survive. Yet he doesn't run mad, and there can be no forgetting.


	3. Bless You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Two characters go shopping together.

"Triaminic or Robitussin?" Lex wondered as they walked into the drugstore, rubbing his nose with a handkerchief. "Which do you prefer?"

Clark glanced at him. "What are you talking about, Lex?"

"Over-the-counter cold medicine." As if to emphasize his point, Lex had another coughing fit. "Or does your mother still give you that kids' stuff? Grape Dimetapp?"

"The medicine is grape?" asked Clark, fumbling for information. He'd never taken a cold remedy in his life.

"Comes in cherry, too." Lex raised an eyebrow. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you with a cold."

"Good genes. Resistant," Clark admitted.


	4. The Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: All about goodbyes.

He should sell the damn things, Lex knows. Hand them over to a dealer or at least donate them to a library. Give them to a shelter for kids between foster homes, so that someone else can enjoy them. But he craves the symbolism of the bonfire.

Gasoline, one match, and the stack goes up in flames. A fragment of a cover tears free, flying into the smoky air. Lex sees a flash of cape, a muscular arm, a face.

But he's too old for comic books, and much too old to hope for a superhero to come save him.


	5. Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: This week, we are taking a cue from the episode "Transference." Characters should be either switching bodies or personality/character traits.

If Lex got lucky, the switch would last long enough to learn Clark's secrets. He knew Clark would make him switch back, no matter what entitlements Clark controlled as Lex.

In four days as Clark, Lex learned that he could crush steel in his fist and burn down buildings with a stare. He ran to Metropolis, robbed a museum.

In four days as Lex, Clark founded a charity and found Lex's diary. Felt guilty but read it anyway, looking for clues how to switch them back. Found that too. Did it.

Then he gave Lex what they'd both really wanted.


	6. Chloe's Career

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Island.

When research finally proves that Lex, not Lana, is the LL of Clark's dreams, Chloe decides there's nothing left to keep her in Smallville. Nor Metropolis, even. She goes down to the Keys with some vague idea of becoming a female Hemingway.

Her first, pathetic coming-of-age novel stalls, but she works on a boat and discovers that she loves the sea. Her second novel, a fantasy about a small-town meteor shower, sells. She saves her money and learns to sail, then sets out across the ocean to search for Amelia Earhart's plane.

Investigating lost legends is, after all, a specialty.


	7. Collectible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Through the eyes of any 'Smallville' character, describe their favourite person, place, or thing.

He won't ever touch them, let alone open them. Non-PVC plastic protects the pages from dust, sunlight and smudged fingerprints. Since the fire, he's kept the non-display volumes locked in an alarmed safe that would survive a nuclear blast.

Books are meant to be read, not collected; that's what one of his tutors told him once. And he does buy a set to read, but they always feel a bit sullied. Lex keeps his comics the way he keeps his secrets -- safe and pristine. It's what Warrior Angel deserves.

It's the way he would keep Clark, too, if he could.


	8. Complex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Since Lex seems to be going into therapy, this week is going to be all about healing those emotional and mental scars they all have.

Lex picks up Clark's homework and grins without humor. Oedipus Rex. Beneath the play, some photocopied pages by Freud.

"Thinking about killing your father?" he asks.

"Sure as hell not thinking about marrying my mom," Clark replies in a revolted voice. Lex conjures Lana and decides to hold his tongue.

"But being adopted..." Lex studies his friend. "Ever think about, what if you met your real dad and he was a complete bastard?"

Clark sits back, contemplative, but of Lex, not the question. "Ever think about killing your father?" he asks.

Instead of replying, Lex asks, "Would you blame me?"


	9. Descendant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Show something ending.

Jonathan watches his son and the man his son loves, thinking that they are the children of their true fathers, no matter how much he longs to believe otherwise.

Acceptance, respect and freedom from Lionel haven't made Lex any less dangerous. And Clark is drawn to that, Jonathan can see now. It's not that Clark wants to save Lex, or the world from Lex. It's that Clark sees himself in Lex.

"Plotting to take over the world?" he jokes, noting Clark's grin and the flicker in Lex's eyes. Clark doesn't realize that Jonathan suspects. But Lex, he sees, always has.


	10. Devil's Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Today's Wednesday100 challenge is brought to you by the letter S.

"ohhGOD!"

"...good?"

"Ohhhlex."

"You never say my name while you're coming. Only afterwards."

"Sorry."

"S'okay..."

"I think it's because I can't get my mouth closed to make the X sound."

"Yeah, 'Clark' is easier. Guttural. Reminds me of suck, cock, dick, all those..."

"Yours rhymes with sex."

"Jack-off. The good sex words end with K, like fuck."

"Or in the middle like jack-off."

"Right. It seems fake when someone's yelling 'Yes!' How can anyone pronounce 'Yes'?"

"I think it's the drawn-out S. Like a hiss. Like you're a snake."

"Or Satan. You called me God."

"That bother you?"

"Hell, no."


	11. Dye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Use a color.

The week Martha went blonde, men who would have ignored her days earlier held doors for her. Old friends stopped her to tell her how wonderful she looked. Even Jonathan had a wink for her where before he would only have had a tired smile.

Staring in the mirror, she thought she looked ghastly: skin tone washed out, freckles raised darkly across her nose. Angrily she painted on a smile. She resented the change, resented its impact, but they lived in a world where beauty went further than brains, where her alien son could be fatally distracted by lip gloss.


	12. The Fisherman and the Turtle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Mythology or fairytales, recast the characters or simply use a fairytale or myth in some way in your drabble.

After the fisherman pulls the turtle out of the water, it promises to grant wishes. But the moral of most fairy tales? Wishing is the most dangerous thing you can do. Clark thinks of King Midas, the monkey's paw. When the gods want to punish you, they grant your prayers.

This magical turtle offers cars, toys...secret knowledge. Clark knows the risks of accepting those things -- he understands, even if his father upsets him, telling him to give them back.

But in stories, the most dangerous wish (love) can be the most rewarding. And there's Lex, holding out his hand.


	13. Forgiving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Addiction.

Every few weeks, it seems to Chloe, they replay this scene in the Talon: she apologizes to Lana for something involving Clark, and Lana begrudgingly forgives her because she needs an ally, someone to share her pain. It's ridiculous, Chloe thinks, that they spend this much time bonding over a guy who doesn't really deserve either of them.

Then why does she keep doing it?

After the latest incident, telling Lana that she's sorry for hiding Clark all summer, Chloe realizes suddenly that she's never expected a big emotional breakthrough with Clark. It's making up with Lana that she craves.


	14. Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Weather.

Four days before his inauguration, the future President and First Lady skate across a frozen pond near his childhood home. "I remember being happy here," Lex Luthor says nostalgically.

In Washington, three of the men who will comprise Luthor's Cabinet are meeting in secret. Soon there will be weapons within the Arctic Circle. And after they fly, Clark knows, dark skies and ice will cover the globe.

He could melt it. A momentary burst from his eyes and the pond would thaw. Lex would fall under. The world would be safe.

But this cold afternoon, Clark's tears block the blaze.


	15. Gambol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Find the word from your birthday in the archives of wordoftheday. Write a 'Smallville' drabble using that word. (Mine was **gambol** \GAM-buhl\, _intransitive verb_:  
> To dance and skip about in play; to frolic.)

Lex had never been that young, Martha decided. Young enough to jump in puddles, to cavort in the mud in his good clothes, to gambol in a berry patch just because it was there. She looked at the man, remembered the serious little boy he had been -- already Lionel's son -- and wondered.

Because Lionel knew how to play. It wasn't something he allowed himself often, but she had been there. She remembered a long-ago summer, a party, paper lanterns strung from the trees. And game of hide and seek.

Lex had never been as young as Martha was that night.


	16. Grounds for Expulsion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: It's time for the kids to go back to school.

1) Weapons on school property.  
2) Acts or threats of violence against any teacher or student.  
3) Physical or verbal bullying.  
4) Possession, use, distribution or sale of illegal drugs or unauthorized medication.  
5) Sexual harassment of students or teachers.  
6) Use of school computers or equipment for illegal activities.  
7) Trespassing on school grounds.  
8) Any willful infraction of safety rules.

Lex reads over the list.

He's already tried two and six. Three and five are rarely fully enforced.

So, this time, shall it be the gun, a fake fire alarm, or cocaine?

Which would his father hate most?


	17. Lion in Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Let's hear what's going on inside those characters' heads! Tell us what they are thinking, because we all know that's a frustrating mystery sometimes.

It's not that he doesn't love Lex. He just wishes he had another son. A son he knows he can trust with his legacy.

This must be how Henry II felt. The son he loved best, dead. His heir, gay. His best competition a bastard. And the other son not looking for his father's love, but his power.

Too late for Lucas. Lex could run the empire; in some ways, maybe the important ones, Lex is like him. But can Lex build a dynasty? Does he even want to?

Or does Lex secretly dream of a crusade with his hero?


	18. Living Well Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Revenge.

Lex never becomes president of the United States. He doesn't even last as president of LutherCorp. It's painful, sometimes, that Clark has so little time for him, but Clark has a destiny to save humanity from itself, whereas Lex has chosen a different path.

The house is small and provincial even by the standards of Smallville. There isn't money for fancy cars or fencing lessons; not even for private schools, though the kids don't mind.

If Lionel refuses to visit, it's not because of the comparative squalor. He simply cannot bear to see how much his grandchildren love their father.


	19. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Something is lost.

"Just tell me the truth," Lex begs, and it's that moment: either Lex will learn that Clark has been lying by omission for more than three years, or Lex will think he's lying now. In either case, what fragile trust they have managed to build will be gone.

"I'm not human," Clark begins, but Lex screws up his face, laughs a little, shakes his head.

"Not that. I've known that for a long time."

"Then what...?" But Lex is still smiling, and finally, Clark understands. He will have to shatter everything to make it new.

"The truth is...," he begins.


	20. Loveless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: With all the attention given to the letter S last week, the rest of the alphabet must have felt left out. So everyone gets to feel left out today. Write a drabble without the use of any letter of your choice. (The following is not brought to you by the letter "v".)

The keyboard sticks. Thus she can write the romantic letter, but she can't type the critical word.

She considers that perhaps she should write in longhand -- letters like this one aren't supposed to come from a printer. But she wants to make sure she has a copy safe on her computer to go back and read no matter what happens, no matter what Clark says, or if he rips it up.

She tries to think of synonyms, less clichéd ways to say it, but there really aren't any substitutes. "Like," as she knows too well, is the kiss of death.


	21. The Lucid Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: This is the week in Kansas when the lights came on. Follows last week's blackout challenge and, ironically, the Great Blackout of August 2003.

Lionel thought at first that he was hallucinating, the way men who've lost limbs still feel them itch. Brightness, then shapes began to register. One morning he could perceive Martha's hair, distinctly red against a dark wood bookcase. A few days later he made out keys on the piano, white inlaid with black like bars of music.

He told no one, keeping his eyes hidden with shades, and learned to read around the frames: ceilings, corners, feet patterned like braille. Though his vision improved daily, he waited, anticipating a moment of clarity to make the revelation.

And then, he saw.


	22. Mythological

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Die Helen Die.

"Three million if the wedding never happens," the woman stated. Lionel smiled in genuine surprise; it was far less than he expected. "And five million if it does. Plus all expenses -- I get to keep my clothes, my car, any gifts Lex might give me..."

"Not the ring," insisted Lionel.

"Not the ring. And you will pay for the plastic surgery and paperwork afterwards."

"I think we understand each other." Lionel took a few more notes. "One more question. By what name would you like to be known?"

"Helen," answered the woman. Like 'of Troy.' To bring kings to war.


	23. Nightly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Without TV, where would we be? Pay your respects with a drabble.

She preferred print: her own research, her own words. But when Lionel insisted that she anchor the evening news, she accepted.

"Look how elegant you are," he said matter-of-factly, fast-forwarding through tapes of test broadcasts. "The new hairstyle makes you look sophisticated, and you have a natural seriousness that conveys itself when you speak."

No one, he meant, would recognize her for the whore she was -- not even when she spoke of Luthercorp's public relations triumphs. Chloe Sullivan was a professional who had worked hard and sacrificed much. If the camera made love to her, she'd earned it.


	24. Not What You Think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 101 ways to get rid of Lana.

It sucks to be a girl in Smallville.

Show too much strength or intelligence and people think you're a freak, altered by the meteor, like everything in your life. At least you're pretty, and a better actress than they'd guess. You can play dumb and helpless.

When Lex comes to town, you realize you can't take on him and Clark at the same time. Clark's too powerful and Lex is too protective. The best you can hope to do is divide and conquer.

One day soon, Lex will take care of Clark for you. Then the world will be yours.


	25. Not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Time loops, time warps, time limits, anything to do with time.

It's like that Robert Frost poem, only there's no yellow wood, and more than two roads.

There's the awful direction his birth parents laid out for him when they sent him to Earth, branching into the path Martha and Jonathan have always wanted for him: quiet, slow, nondescript. Then there's the way Lex offered, paved in gold but also blood, and the lane Chloe chose, straight to a truth that made her someone else.

So many branching roads, with time burning them each away like an inferno. Clark might be able to reroute one, but not all. Which to choose?


	26. Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: They say everything can be distilled to one of two plotlines: somebody goes away and somebody comes back.

The first time it's carbon monoxide. His father gets back early from Metropolis; his driver finds Lex.

The second time it's the razor. Maria, or maybe Luisa, sneaks into the bathroom for a stolen shot and finds Lex.

Then it's pills. And it's Lionel himself. When Lex wakes in his bedroom (of course his father wouldn't take him to the hospital, not after the last time), Lionel tells him he's doing it like a woman would -- trying to get caught, to be stopped. Pathetic.

The last time it's from the fifty-third floor. Foolproof. But it's Clark.

And Lex is saved.


	27. Paternal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: A meeting in secret.

"You'll leave my family alone?" Martha had demanded. She wasn't afraid of Lionel, and he liked that. Furious, bitter, yes, but not frightened of him. Unlike her husband; Lionel Luthor could smell Jonathan Kent's fear every time he came near the man.

"I'm a man of my word," Lionel had reminded Jonathan's wife. "It's a simple exchange, Martha. Clark and his secret will be safe. Even from Lex."

Lionel picks up the phone to call the hospital. It's taken some doing to switch the lab results. But he can't have Lex's fiancée discovering who's the father of the Kent baby.


	28. Permission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clark must use his powers for something other than rescue.

He's entitled, dammit. He's entitled to love some people more than others, to want some things more than others. That makes him feel human, even if he isn't.

And if Clark can't have a crush on Lex in the normal teenage way -- if he can't call Lex's house and hang up quickly when Lex answers, or sneak peeks in Lex's front windows, or follow Lex casually from store to store, because Lex's life-in-a-bubble isn't normal either -- then Clark's entitled to look through walls. To follow Lex's car like a gust of wind. To burn away obstacles between them.


	29. Poke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Games

Clark had never seen such a run of bad luck, especially not happening to Lex. His cards hadn't been great -- a couple of three-of-a-kind, a flush -- but Lex couldn't even seem to draw a pair.

Which was good, because now that Lex was down to his boxers and one sock, Clark found it hard to concentrate.

He didn't mean to cheat; his glance through the backs of Lex's cards was really accidental. Still, it surprised Clark to see Lex discard half of a pair of jacks.

Lex lost the hand, and took off the other sock.

And won the game.


	30. Radiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Give someone a mutant power.

"I'll read your aura," claims the woman in the bookstore, neck weighed down with charms and fingers burdened with pentacle rings. Martha smiles politely and turns from the black-blue of her, an unhappy contrast with her moonstone earrings.

Martha can read auras. Lana's is golden-pink, streaked with red now she's becoming a woman. Lex's is dark steel with a silver corona. When she first saw Jonathan's, after the meteor shower, Martha wasn't surprised that his aura would be summer-green.

Clark's is pure white, like an unwritten page. But her own drab brown has fire in it, and she fears herself.


	31. Ruse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: They always say, write what you know. The power's out at my house, and in Kansas, too.

He needs two minutes to destroy his father's scheme: computers offline, phones silenced, Lionel trapped behind the security gate that won't open until its controls are reset. Then the younger Luthor rather than the elder will place the last-minute bid.

He's anticipated everything but the presence of his best friend, who seems to be able to see in the dark. "Why'd you cut the wires, Lex?" -- less befuddled farm-boy than righteous superhero.

No time to prevaricate. "So I could do this." Lex goes by feel, kisses Clark on the mouth. Ends up missing his buyout deadline, but finally doesn't care.


	32. Secluded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Island.

When Lex begins to wither in the ice palace, Clark takes him south. It's privacy that's necessary, not cold. The sea surrounds the reef; tall palms surround the clearing; a fence surrounds the compound. Clark thinks about adding a moat as well.

Yet Lex continues to fade, though Clark walks with him in the sun and brings him fruit and meats from all corners of the globe. "I'm tired of being kept in a cage," Lex tells him, but Clark knows he can't mean that.

This is safety. Lex loves him. And Clark will protect his heart from the world.


	33. Superman: The Next Generation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Alternate-universe setting.

"Captain!" Clark insisted. "Let me talk to the aliens. If it's true that they destroyed Krypton..."

"I'm not sending you over there, Number One," Captain Luthor said firmly. "The risks outweigh any possible benefits. Counselor..." He turned to Lana. "Do you sense hostility?"

"I sense great danger to Commander Kent." Lana's wide, wounded eyes looked up at Clark just as the doctor strode onto the bridge.

"Lex, I have something to tell you..." Chloe began, when the ship suddenly rocked and Pete's VISOR glowed. Captain Luthor knew the time had come for desperate measures.

"In my ready room, Mr. Kent."


	34. Tender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Tell us about the moms.

By the time Lex was born, she knew better than to love him. He would be Lionel's, like everything was Lionel's, and it would only hurt them both if she tried to make a claim. She feigned illness, let nurses and nannies stay with the boy.

When she couldn't stand it anymore, she made a deal: new name new face new city, and Lionel would keep Lex. He scripted a "death" to suit his interests. Others, she knew, would have said she had abandoned her son, but she'd done that years earlier; she had known he never had a chance.


	35. That Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Tell us a story about the in-between -- after "Exodus", but before "Exile".

The summer that Martha turned seventeen, she had an abortion. She never told anyone, not even Lionel. Years later when she could not conceive, she realized that she had dreaded such a price.

When she finally felt strong enough to ask about her baby, she was not surprised that the doctor told her she would have miscarried anyway. There were abnormalities not seen on a sonogram. And scarring.

She might have saved Clark agonizing months of grief had she just blurted out the truth. But she couldn't bring herself to say the words; she could never let Jonathan find out.


	36. Tracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Explore why everyone else forgets things, why they remember things, and what it is that makes them what they are.

It's wrong, Clark thinks, to hold to first impressions. The fact that someone was your friend when you were younger doesn't mean she won't hurt you when you're older. The fact that someone tormented you in high school doesn't mean he'll always be a bastard.

Still, he can't get rid of those imprints. Chloe, when work meant possibility, not struggle. Pete, when being best friends meant being there. Lana's always been about nostalgia, the unattainable light at the end of the dock. And Lex? No matter how many betrayals later, still a vehicle hurtling toward destruction, brought back by love.


	37. Two Griefs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Something is broken.

In the nightmare, his love is not enough.

He compresses Lex's chest until he hears ribs crack, blows air into Lex's lungs until the blood frothing at his lips tells him that he's breaking tiny veins with the force of his exhalations. Still Lex will not breathe on his own, unable to take the gift of life from Clark.

Finally, staring into glazed eyes, Clark knows his efforts are hopeless. He's not a superhero. He can't bring the dead back to life.

When he wakes, Clark wonders which he fears more: losing Lex, or never having had him to lose.


	38. The Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Forgiveness.

Sometimes Lex wonders whether he's all wrong about his father.

He's told himself that Lionel lies, cheats and abuses him to make him stronger. That Lionel's intentions are good, if misguided; he truly believes he's grooming Lex to be the best Luthor he can.

But occasionally Lex thinks that Lionel treats him as he does just because Lionel is cruel and selfish. His father can't believe such behavior will strengthen Lex's willpower or fortitude; Lionel only wants to feel strong himself, so he needs a son as a worthy adversary to trample.

At such times, Lex can almost pity him.


	39. Unsaved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Hourglass."

Black circles. Flowers. Blood. Human remains. Lex's hand.

Cassandra saw it all. When Clark touched her dead body, so did he.

Now Clark knows he could have stopped it. But didn't, because he'd wanted to be responsible, save the world.

The irony of foresight.

He had thought of his parents and his secret destiny. Refused what Lex offered, everything he wanted.

Love you. Too. Lex, didn't you know?

No. Clark said that instead. Can't.

Coward.

Lex turned his heart into something else. Not human, like Clark, but different.

Ashes to dust. Clark learned too late. Nothing human remains without love.


	40. Untouchable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Smallville without the subtext - no pairings, no smut. In another word, gen.

Keeping his loved ones safe is the most important thing. Clark learns this, after his mother loses the baby; it doesn't matter whether he goes out with Lana or Chloe, doesn't matter whether Lex considers him his best friend or just a local mystery to pass the time with.

When his mother tentatively asks whether he'll be going to the prom, he shakes his head. Man of Steel. Pete's taking Chloe, and Lana's got a new boyfriend now, a nice guy named Scott. Lex comes over and they play gin rummy because it's a game Clark can't fix. He loses.


	41. Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dates, sex, skiing, whatever you want the focus to be, so long as it is the character's first time.

Ever since Helen and the plane, Lex has had a problem with heights. It's fine in buildings, behind glass, but in the open air, he can get paralyzed.

So when Clark offers, even though he would trust Clark with his life ten times over, he's afraid. Not of dying, maybe, just of peeing in his pants or puking on the rooftops of Smallville, and even though Clark would never laugh at him, he resists.

"Just try it with me," Clark begs, reminding Lex of the things he'd taught an uncertain farm boy to like. And he does. And they fly.


	42. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Pick your favorite song, put it on repeat, and write a drabble to match the mood. (For Paul McCartney.)

"There's nothing you can make that can't be made, no one you can save that can't be saved," Lex sings off-key. Clark looks over at him, and suddenly it's that easy.

"All you need is love?"

"Well, and money," Lex concedes, but he's smiling. "You're the one who thinks you can save people, and see things that aren't shown."

"Nothing I can do that can't be done," Clark shrugs, grinning back. Not so easy to learn how to be you in time, but he's done that, too. "So I can do this."

And when he does, Lex kisses him back.


End file.
